“’Urt it!  Hain’t I a right to do wot I likes with my hown babby?  ’Urt it!  Well, I never!  Look ’ere!”—­and she turned round on the assembled neighbours—­“hain’t she a reg’lar one?  She don’t care for the law, not she!  She’s keepin’ back a child from its hown mother!” And with that she made a fierce attack on the shawl, and succeeded in dragging the infant from Liz’s reluctant arms.  Wakened thus roughly from its slumbers, the poor mite set up a feeble wailing; its mother, enraged at the sound, shook it violently till it gasped for breath.

“Drat the little beast!” she cried.  “Why don’t it choke an’ ’ave done with it!”

And, without heeding the terrified remonstrances of Liz, she flung the child roughly, as though it were a ball, through the open door of her lodgings, where it fell on a heap of dirty clothes, and lay motionless; its wailing had ceased.

“Oh, baby, baby!” exclaimed Liz, in accents of poignant distress.  “Oh, you have killed it, I am sure!  Oh, you are cruel, cruel!  Oh, baby, baby!”

And she broke into a tempestuous passion of sobs and tears.  The bystanders looked on in unmoved silence.  Mother Mawks gathered her torn garments round her with a gesture of defiance, and sniffed the air as though she said, “Any one who wants to meddle with me will get the worst of it.”  There was a brief pause; suddenly a man staggered out of the gin-shop, smearing the back of his hand across his mouth as he came—­a massively built, ill-favoured brute, with a shock of uncombed red hair and small ferret-like eyes.  He stared stupidly at the weeping Liz, then at Mother Mawks, finally from one to the other of the loafers who stood by.  “Wot’s the row?” he demanded, quickly.  “Wot’s up?  ’Ave it out fair!  Joe Mawks ’ll stand by and see fair game.  Fire away, my hearties! fire, fire away!” And, with a chuckling idiot laugh, he dived into the pocket of his torn corduroy trousers and produced a pipe.  Filling this leisurely from a greasy pouch, with such unsteady fingers that the tobacco dropped all over him, he lighted it, repeating, with increased thickness of utterance, “Wot’s the row!  ’Ave it out fair!”

“It’s about your babby, Joe!” cried the girl before mentioned, jumping up from her seat on the ground with such force that her hair came tumbling all about her in a dark, dank mist, through which her thin, eager face spitefully peered.  “Liz has gone crazy!  She wants your babby to cuddle!” And she screamed with sudden laughter.  “Eh, eh, fancy!  Wants a babby to cuddle!”

The stupefied Joe blinked drowsily and sucked the stem of his pipe with apparent relish.  Then, as if he had been engaged in deep meditation on the subject, he removed his smoky consoler from his mouth, and said, “W’y not?  Wants a babby to cuddle?  All right!  Let ’er ’ave it—­w’y not?”

At these words Liz looked up hopefully through her tears, but Mother Mawks darted forward in raving indignation.